Americans make up just 5 percent of the world's population but account for 25 percent of the population behind bars. Why? Because prisons are a big business and the WAR on Drugs, CNN reporter Fareed Zakaria says. The total number of Americans under correctional supervision (prison, parole, etc.) is 7.1 million, more than the entire state of Massachusetts. Prisons are a big business. Most are privately run, have powerful lobbyists and have bought most state politicians.

Libertarians are often marginalized, typically by the right, for wanting to legalize drugs. ”Whaddya wanna have HEROIN in vending machines!?!”, as some have ridiculously asked.
And while it’s true that Libertarians don’t support government action for dealing with a drug problem, it isn’t usually true that we think that people should use HARD drugs.

When Pompton Lakes police seized Darren Richardson’s car on a rainy September afternoon, they told him it was headed for an impound lot. When they returned it three weeks later, he says, the 2004 BMW belonged in a junk yard. According to police reports, the damage to the black BMW 325i came in the aftermath of a traffic stop during which officers detected a "strong odor of raw marijuana" inside the vehicle. Searching for a cache of drugs, members of three different police agencies and a detective from a federal drug task force spent two days tearing the car apart, the reports said.

A provision of the Michigan medical marijuana law that prohibits police from seizing pot possessed by licensed medical marijuana patients is invalid because it conflicts with federal law, Attorney General Bill Schuette said in an opinion released Thursday, one in which he warns officers who return marijuana to patients that they could be prosecuted as dope dealers.

She said her husband opened the door to multiple officers in raid gear with guns drawn. "We were completely shocked, upset," she continued. She said the officers demanded to come inside her home. "And my husband asked, 'Do you have a warrant?

A study by University of B.C. journalism students says the global war on illicit drugs is preventing patients suffering terminal illnesses in some countries from having sufficient access to morphine to control their pain.

An un-contacted Amazon tribe has disappeared since a group of armed men (presumed to be Peruvian drug traffickers) overran a Brazilian guardpost near the tribe's lands. Brazilian officials are now looking for signs of the missing tribe.